Tears of the Silenced

by Misty Griffin

Never turn a blind eye towards child abuse. Please be a hero and report; you may be that child’s last chance.

I would report child abuse so the sick abusers pay for theor crime

There are moments when even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity may assume the semblance of hell. —Edgar Allan Poe

It sembles likd hell now

A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. —Sir William Neil

Yep they are

was born to an unusual couple; my mother was the seventeen-year-old girlfriend of her former stepfather, who was only twenty-eight years old himself.

Sick!

The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved. —Mother Teresa

Mothr Teresa

People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, as no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It istrue

As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know. —C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

toot

The tears I feel today I’ll wait to shed tomorrow. Though I’ll not sleep this night Nor find surcease from sorrow. My eyes must keep their sight: I dare not be tear-blinded. I must be free to talk Not choked with grief, clear-minded. My mouth cannot betray The anguish that I know. Yes, I’ll keep my tears till later: But my grief will never go. —Anne McCaffrey, Dragonsinger

So sad

An abuse victim learns to deal with the everyday torturous life because it is always the same, but when a breath of hope comes and goes, it feels worse than ever.

abuse victims

The Ordnung Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people—they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress. —Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Ordung

English then in Pennsylvania Dutch. The lantern light flickered in the cool September breeze. Jacob was reading the Die Blatt newspaper. He commented that rain would

Jealousy can make the best of people unkind.

Jealousy

The first duty of a man is to think for himself. —José Martí

man's duty

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. —Albert Einstein

dangerous place

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

facts

Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man. —Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

forced to forgive

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

conformity

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

most courageos

Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time. —Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners

indifference

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. —Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

silence

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

shunned

Courage isn’t having the strength to go on—it is going on when you don’t have strength. —Napoleon

yep

You never fail until you stop trying.

fail

Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting

change

you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything. —Gordon A. Eadie

stand for something

No matter how bad home was, it was still home, and home is something that will always be a part of you, something that helps define your life. Whether or not you chose to repeat what you had learned at home in your life—whether you did better or worse—home would always be there with you. It was so hard to resist the tug that pulled at my heartstrings that morning.

home

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

You may be the only person left who believes in you, but it’s enough. It takes just one star to pierce a universe of darkness. Never give up. —Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, & Grumblings for Every Day of the Year

never gi e up

The documentary Why I Ran Away from the Amish has now been released and is available on YouTube.

own dreams and not let anyone dictate to them. In the end, you are accountable for how your life turns out. Do not ever let anyone make you feel you are less than worthy, for every man, woman, and child should have the same rights in this world. We were all born into the world the same way, and will all depart from it, one no better than the other.

my story three years before Me Too and Time’s Up. Even